1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a communication apparatus, and in particular to an optical communication apparatus and an optical transceiver thereof.
2. Related Art
Due to rapid development of the computer system and the related periphery devices applied thereto, it is a trend to increase the information transmission speed for performing highly complex operations, such as digital signal transmissions and image analysis. Under this demands, the optical fiber is invented for the long-distance or short-distance signal transmissions. Since the optical signals can be transmitted in a higher speed than the electrical signals, the goal of increasing the information transmission speed can be achieved.
A fiber optical communication module has been used to transmit signals between electrical devices. It is composed of an optical transceiver module and a driver/receiver circuitry module. The optical transceiver module usually includes a light emitting device and a light detecting device.
As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional optical communication apparatus 1 includes an optical transceiver 10, which is inserted into a cage 12 of a circuit board 11 for connecting to a connector 13 of the circuit board 11. The whole structure is then installed into a main system such as a router or a computer. In this case, in order to provide the flexibility for the system specifications, the optical transceiver 10 is designed as being flexibly plugged/unplugged to the cage 12. In more details, the optical transceiver 10 has a latch mechanism for locking itself in the cage or for ejecting itself from the cage 12.
As shown in FIG. 2, a latch mechanism 101 of the conventional optical transceiver 10 includes a first sliding arm 102, a second sliding arm 103, and a movable bar 104. The first sliding arm 102 and the second sliding arm 103 are substantially disposed in parallel at two opposite sides of the cage 12. Besides, each of the sliding arms 102 and 103 has a protrusion portion 105 located at one end thereof and an elastic element 106 located therein, respectively. When the movable bar 104 vertically contacts with the sliding arms 102 and 103, the protrusion portion 105 is locked with the elastic chip 121 located at the side surface of the cage 12 and protruded inwardly. Thus, the optical transceiver 10 can be locked within the cage 12. In this case, the elastic elements 106 of the sliding arms 102 and 103 are compressed. In addition, when the movable bar 104 is rotated to release the sliding arms 102 and 103, the optical transceiver 10 is pushed to slide along the direction “X”, as shown in FIG. 1, by the restore elasticity of the elastic elements 106 so that the optical transceiver 10 is ejected out of the cage 12.
However, because the conventional latch mechanism 101 needs many components, it results in assembling difficulty and high manufacturing and component managing costs. Moreover, the elastic elements 106 of the latch mechanism 101 may lose their functions due to the elastic fatigue after several times of plugging-in and ejecting actions.
It is therefore an important subject of the invention to provide an optical communication apparatus and an optical transceiver thereof with advantages of simply assembling, low manufacturing and component managing costs and high product reliability.